The Verge reports on Richard Balzar's collection of pre-cinema and magic lanterns. It shows a number of animated gifs of zoetrope strips and related items.
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De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre will be holding a conference in 2014 titled Exchanging Photographs: Making Knowledge. A call for papers will be made shortly.
The 9th Seminar is organised by the Museu del Cinema, The Department of Geography, History & History of Art at the University of Girona (UdG), and the Spanish Ministry Economy and Competitiveness "La construcción del imaginario bélico en las actualidades de la Primera Guerra Mundial".
Girona, Spain - 14 and 15 November 2013.
Details: http://www.museudelcinema.cat/eng/institut_seminari_2013.php
The concept and metaphor of ‘translation’, as an approach to practices and effects, has become increasingly widespread across a range of disciplines: archaeology, history, anthropology, cultural studies and, of course, the field of translation studies itself, in a symbiotic flow of key concepts.
This panel will bring together a group of interdisciplinary scholars to consider the act and object of photography as an form of cultural translation that moves a set of experiences - the war zone, the ritual event, the everyday - from one space of understanding to another.
The panel asks for whom, and under what circumstances can photographs be seen as acts of translation? How does this intersect with our understanding of ‘representation’? To what extent is photography assumed to be a universal language? To what extent is photography, as an act of translation, assumed, that is at the same time, to transcend that translation in the global flow of representations/ images? To what extent does photography claim or challenge universal categories of comprehension? Does it assume unproblematic and mutually exchangeable accessibility? What is its cultural shaping in the act of apprehension? How is the act of translation disrupted by moments of incomprehension?
Contributors will be asked specifically to bring recent thinking in translation theory to new thinking on photographic analysis to explore synergies and problems. Is ‘cultural translation’ an exhausted metaphor that assumes the universality of photographic meaning, or does it open a space in which the analysis of the cultural work of photographs can be enriched and refigured by thinking through the act of translation itself?
It is significant how many ‘trans-‘ words cluster around attempts to understand the social and cultural efficacy of photography – not only translation itself but transaction, transcription, transfiguration, transubstantiation, even transgression. Linguistic models have had a profound influence on photographic analysis in the past few decades. Translation promises to enrich photography studies because it adds a dynamic, diachronic, and dialogic dimension to our understanding of photography and the multiple acts of interpretation to which it perforce gives rise.
Convenors
- Professor Elizabeth Edwards: Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University
- Professor Jonathan Long: School of Modern Languages, Durham University
A Call for Papers is now open. Paper abstracts should be no more than 300 words in length, and should be submitted by 30 January 2014 using Easy Chair ( also see https://www.dur.ac.uk/ias/2014conference/callforpapers/ for instructions).
The Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership will be awarding 410 PhD studentships over a five year period to excellent research students in the arts and humanities. The DTP, a collaboration between De Montfort University and the universities of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent, Leicester, Birmingham and Birmingham City, provides research candidates with cross-institutional mentoring, expert supervision including cross-institutional supervision where appropriate, subject-specific and generic training, and professional support in preparing for a career.
The Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort is inviting applications from students whose research interests include:
• Social and Cultural Practices of Photography
• Practising Photography in the Sciences
• History of Photographic Technology
• Historiographical Studies in Photography
• Industrial and Business History of Photography
• Cross-cultural Histories of Photography
• Amateur Photography
• Photography, Nationhood and Identity
The deadline for AHRC funding applications is 9 January 2014, by which time students must have applied for a place to study and have provided two references to a university within the DTP. For full details of eligibility, funding and research supervision areas, please visit www.midlands3cities.ac.uk or contact enquiries@midlands3cities.ac.uk
2013 marks the 125th anniversary of the Wolverhampton Photographic Society. To celebrate the occasion, an exhibition traces the rich and influential history of photography in Wolverhampton from the mid-19th century to the present day.
The exhibition features six key local figures of influence in the medium’s development, including the ‘father of art photography’ Oscar J Rejlander, and others such as Haseler, Whitlock, Bennett-Clark, Eisenhofer and Susser. This historical component is complemented by a display of contemporary photographs demonstrating the expertise of Society members in capturing the constantly changing face of the city.
The exhibition has been generously supported by Heritage Lottery Fund.
On Saturday 16 November 2013 at 10.30am the RPS Historical Group has a special event arranged. Group members Roy Hawthorne and David Kingston will take attendees round the exhibition. Roy and David have also compiled an AV relating to Rejlander’s Two Ways of Life and their research into how he might have constructed it.
Lunch will be available at the nearby Bantock House Museum cafeteria and for those who wish to join us in the afternoon, viewings of photographic archives of Wolverhampton may be arranged by the Curator (depending on numbers). For others, this is also an ideal opportunity to visit nearby Wightwick Manor (See National Trust website for details).There is no charge for the Gallery visit but booking is essential. Please contact Geoff Blackwell, not later than 7th November 2013 if you wish to attend. (gblackwell@fastmail.fm or 0114 266 8655)
Image:Oscar G. Rejlander - The Two Ways of Life, 1857. The Royal Photographic Society Collection © National Media Museum, Bradford / SSPL
The Royal Photographic Society is hosting an exclusive 3D presentation and lecture on 1 November in London to celebrate the publication of the London Stereoscopic Company's Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell by Dr Brian H May CBE, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming.
The authors - led by Queen guitarist, astronomer and photo-historian Brian May - will present a Gothic Victorian underworld of temptation, seduction, retribution and devilish fun brought alive in colour and 3D. Learn about the origins and hidden meanings of these rare 1860s French photographs which depict an imaginary underworld populated by devils, satyrs and skeletons.
Put on your 3D glasses and prepare to be surprised!
The evening will also provide an opportunity to buy copies of the book and to have them signed by the authors.
This will be the first opportunity to hear the fascinating story of the diableries and to purchase the book which is published on Halloween, 31 October. The book is 280 pages with 500 photographs in colour and black and white and comes complete with an OWL stereo viewer designed by Brian May.
Read more here or buy tickets online from The RPS shop here priced £15.
The latest issue of The Royal Photographic Society's Imaging Science Journal carries three papers from the 2010 Niépce conference. The majority of the conference papers are published in two special issues of the ISJ (includes those in the issue shown right) and PhotoHistorian and can be purchased as a set from The Society's online shop here: http://www.rps.org/group/Historical/Niepce-conference
The Art Fund's Art Quarterly magazine publishes a great feature by Charles Darwent about the history of photography at the Science Museum ending up it's new London Media Space.
The article is available to download here: http://www.artfund.org/about-us/art-quarterly
On Wednesday, 30 October Tate Britain is hosting a live hang-out with fashion photographer Miles Aldridge, Tate curator of Photography Simon Baker and art critic Miranda Sawyer, as part of the ongoing ‘Meet Tate Britain’ series. British artist Fiona Crisp, HotShoe editor Gregory Barker and renowned instagrammer Michael O’Neal will also be hanging out live to discuss the importance of photography as an artistic discipline.
Viewers can tune in from anywhere in the world to watch the discussion at 20:00 – 20:30. This is the third in a series of hang-outs which explore the relationship between art and wider creative spheres. For more information please visit: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/special-event/photography-meets-art-hangout-on-air
An accompanying video will also be released during the day featuring Miles Aldridge as he embarks on a brand new project inspired by Tate collection piece The Carousel by Mark Gertler. This exclusive footage will offer viewers an insight into Miles’ photographic practise and the inspiration he gains from the collection at Tate Britain. It will go live on the 30th here
See more here: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/special-event/photography-meets-art-hangout-on-air
This is the third in our new series of books exploring key aspects of both contemporary and historic photography. With 480 pages and more than 100 colour illustrations The Photograph and The Album: Histories, Practices, Futures is a perceptive and stimulating guide to understanding that most pervasive photographic format, the photo album. Becoming "increasingly unruly", it has survived for over 150 years, from the first experimental albums of the 1850s to today's interactive, mobile applications.
Through the placing of single images in sequence, the photo album is the narrative format par excellence. And, as this book demonstrates, its narratives embrace the social, the historical, the sexual and the political. With contributions from twenty respected international authors - academics, curators, photographers, collectors, researchers and writers - The Photograph and The Album examines the topic in both visual and written form, spanning historic practice, present-day creation, and future trends.
More here: http://www.museumsetc.com/products/album
PUBLICATION DETAILS
Title: The Photograph and The Album: Histories, Practices, Futures
Editors: Jonathan Carson, Rosie Miller & Theresa Wilkie
ISBN: 978-1-907697-91-3 [paperback] | 978-1-907697-92-0 [hardback] | 978-1-907697-93-7
Pages: 480
Colour illustrations: 110
Size: 203 x 127 mm
Price: £39.95 [eBook] | £49.95 [paperback] | £79.95 [hardback]
Publisher: MuseumsEtc
Problem ordering online? Download our Order Form.
Box of Light which runs from 25-27 October at the Library of Birmingham is a celebration of the pre-cinema,magic lantern and early cinema. A series of events, talks workshops and activities taking place throughout the weekend. The event coincides with the Magic Lantern Society's Convention.
Library of Birmingham and The REP 25 – 27 October 2013
To coincide with the Magic Lantern Society’s annual conference in Birmingham, Flatpack Festival presents Box of Light, a weekend full of events, workshops and activities celebrating early cinema.
Before the days of film, the magic lantern was an important source of entertainment, using glass slides to create moving images and visual tricks. Birmingham played a key role in this pre-cinema world, producing thousands of lanterns for export, leading to the birth of the flipbook, and eventually the cinema.
Box of Light Variety Show
25 October
7.30 – 9.30pm – £8
Studio Theatre, Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2ND
An evening of edification and entertainment featuring acclaimed performer Professor Heard, who will provide a whistle-stop history of lantern shows and explain how they helped pave the way for cinema. This will be followed by the Physioscope, a Victorian experiment with light and mirrors recreated for the first time in a century by Roderick MacLachlan, and the finale of the show is provided by French artist Julien Maire, whose Open Core performance includes a live dissection of a video projector.
Birmingham de Lux
Saturday 26 October 11am and 1.30pm, £5
Birmingham de Lux is Ben Waddington’s exploration into the city’s people, locations and moments that led up to the creation of cinema. The story of the transition from theatre to picture house is one of bold experimentation, imaginative use of simple devices, intriguing prototypes and assorted forgotten wonders that prefigure our long-term fascination with the moving image. The tour takes place in and around the city centre and lasts approximately 90 minutes.
Projecteo
26 October
1.30pm – Free (bookable)
Designer Benjamin Redford will be giving a talk about his ingenious miniature slide projector which has proved to be an online sensation and a big hit on Kickstarter. In response to modern technology and the craze for Instagram, Benjamin has created a tiny projector to share Instagram pictures called the ‘Projecteo’. This analogue approach works by creating wheels of slide film to hold up to 9 images, which can be watched and enjoyed as a slideshow
An unparalleled archive of shipwreck images will be presented for sale at Sotheby’s London auction on 12 November 2013. Taken by four generations of the Gibson family of photographers over nearly 130 years, the 1000 negatives record the wrecks of over 200 ships and the fate of their passengers, crew and cargo as they travelled from across the world through the notoriously treacherous seas around Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly between 1869 and 1997. Such is the power and allure of the Gibson’s photographs that these images have captured the imagination of some of the UK’s most celebrated authors.
At the very forefront of early photojournalism, John Gibson and his descendants were determined to be first on the scene when these shipwrecks struck. Each and every wreck had its own story to tell with unfolding drama, heroics, tragedies and triumphs to be photographed and recorded – the news of which the Gibsons would disseminate to the British mainland and beyond. The original handwritten eye-witness accounts as recorded by Alexander and Herbert Gibson in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will be sold alongside these images. The archive will be sold as a single lot in Sotheby’s Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History sale, and is estimated to achieve between £100,000 and £150,000.
The Gibson family passion for photography was passed down through an astonishing four generations from John Gibson, who purchased his first camera 150 years ago.
Born in 1827, and a seaman by trade, it is not known how or where John Gibson acquired his first camera at time when photography was typically reserved for the wealthiest in society, however we do know that by 1860 he had established himself as a professional photographer in a studio in Penzance. Returning to the Scillies in 1865, he apprenticed his two sons Alexander and Herbert in the business, forging a personal and professional unity which would be passed down through all the generations which followed. Inseparable from his brother until the end, it is said that Alexander almost threw himself into Herbert’s grave at his funeral in 1937.
The family’s famous shipwreck photography began in 1869, on the historic occasion of the arrival of the first Telegraph on the Isles of Scilly. At a time when it could take a week for word to reach the mainland from the islands, the Telegraph transformed the pace at which news could travel. At the forefront of early photojournalism, John became the islands’ local news correspondent, and Alexander the telegraphist - and it is little surprise that the shipwrecks were often major news. On the occasion of the wreck of the 3500-ton German steamer, Schiller in 1876 when over 300 people died, the two worked together for days – John preparing newspaper reports, and Alexander transmitting them across the world, until he collapsed with exhaustion. Although they often worked in the harshest conditions, travelling with hand carts to reach the shipwrecks - scrambling over treacherous coastline with a portable dark room, carrying glass plates and heavy equipment – they produced some of the most arresting and emotive photographic works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
See the lot description at:
Bonhams book auction on 12 November contains an extraordinary cache of ten Hill and Adamson calotypes; an album featuring work by Dodgson, Cameron and Rejlander; and an image by Le Gray.
According to Bonhams' catalogue the album was compiled by Rev. F.H. Atkinson, and relates to his family and acquaintances including the Tennyson family, Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Rejlander, and locations on the Isle of Wight and Ceylon. It has approximately 165 albumen prints (mostly carte-de-visite portraits, some views, others larger), mounted between one and six per page, mostly captioned (many with cut signatures of sitters pasted beneath), with a 3-page AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY JOHN RUSKIN (mounted), newspaper cuttings, contemporary morocco, later cloth wrappers with Atkinson arms embroidered on upper cover, 4to, [c.1862-1890s]
Estimate: £4,000-6,000. details here.
The Hill and Adamson calotypes are here and the Gustave Le Gray is here.
Image: Hallam Tennyson, 1862, from the Atkinson album.
Corfield Cameras: A History and Collectors' Guide is a new publication by John E Lewis being launched today at Ballymoney Town Hall, Northern Ireland. In the 1950s when most British camera manufacturers seemed content to produce outdated designs or very expensive models, K G Corfield Ltd bucked the trend. Their range of Periflex 35mm cameras and related equipment brought a breath of fresh air to the market and challenged the strong German competition. Within a few years the business was transformed from a cottage industry into Britain's most modern camera manufacturing plant.
This history of the company and its products is based on thirty years research, plus interviews with the former management, including Sir Kenneth Corfield, and employees. For collectors and historians there is a section which provides full technical details of all Corfield products, together with advice on their purchase and restoration.
The 200-page book includes over 150 illustrations and is available for £10.95 plus £1.75 UK postage or £7 overseas. Orders can be sent directly by email to: corfieldphoto@btinternet.com
Pete James, Curator of Photographic Collections at the Library of Birmingham will discuss how, over the last 148 years, Birmingham’s four libraries have been the subject of a wide range of projects by architectural, documentary and amateur photographers. The talk will explore some of the ways in which the libraries and their staff have been represented, recorded and celebrated, culminating in the Reference Works project.
The Library of Birmingham holds some 3.5 million items ranging from daguerreotypes to digital works by lead contemporary artists. In 2006 the collection was awarded Designated Status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in recognition of its national and international importance.
The Library of Birmingham, Arts Council England and collaborative partners have created GRAIN, a hub and network of photography within the region. The combination of REFERENCE WORKS and GRAIN will make The Library of Birmingham a national and international centre for photography.
The event is the second in a series of Artists Talks linked to REFERENCE WORKS at the new Library of Birmingham.
Archival Sources - A talk by Pete James
Wednesday 16th October
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Admission Free
Meeting Room 4 - The Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, Birmingham.
http://www.reference-works.com
A descendant of Victor Albert Prout was published a book about this photographer. Victor Albert Prout (1835-77) came from a family of artists and was himself an artist as well as an early photographer. He lived in Australia for a total of eighteen years, first as a child with his father, John Skinner Prout, and later returned there with his wife and children when he worked both as a photographer and a portrait painter. For 130 years nothing more was known about him but his work is now prized and collected in museums and galleries in many countries, including Australia, America, the United Kingdom and Germany. The story of his own and his family's life, and his own tragic death, has now been written.
The book is available from the publishers J & J Osmond, at Joan.Osmond@tesco.net
The Guardian has reported that the National Media Museum has purchased Richard and Cherry Kearton's movie camera which appeared at auction in Newcastle recently. The £4000 acquisition was made with the support of the Royal Photographic Society - both Kearton brothers were members of The Society. The early 20th Century hand-cranked 35mm Urban Trading Company motion-picture camera was used by Cherry Kearton on his trips to Africa in the first two decades of the last century. It will be included in upcoming exhibitions dealing with scientific and war photography.
Richard and Cherry Kearton, working from the 1890s, and were possibly the world's first professional wildlife photographers. Starting at home in the village of Thwaite in north Yorkshire with a cheap box camera, they managed to capture some of the finest early pictures of in their nests, insects, and mammals. But having no telephoto lenses or fast film, they had to lug around massive plate glass cameras and devise ever more bizarre ways to get close to their shy quarries.
Cherry Kearton became the Attenborough of his age, moving into wildlife documentaries, working with US President Roosevelt and travelling on safari to east Africa, Borneo and elsewhere. He took some of the first film of the first world war, at Ypres, and went on to found a film company. He died on the steps of the BBC having just broadcast a film he had made about his pet ape, Toto.
Read the full report here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/06/wildlife-photography-pioneers-attenborough-camera
Country House Camera is an invaluable record of an aristocratic society on the verge seismic change. Visually detailing a rare glimpse of the private lives of English nobility between 1850 and 1930, Country House Camera subtly captures a photographic and social revolution in the making spanning three significant periods of English history; from Victorian, to Edwardian, through to WWI.
From carefree larks with cherished friends to laid-‐back family time, and whimsical shots of sporting triumphs to beguiling poses of young fashionistas; the unusual images featured in Country House Camera expose a side to Victorian and Edwardian affluence which greatly juxtapose our embedded notions of the reserved gentry of this time. Part of the charm of these images, often taken by women of the household, is that the photographers did not pretend to be master stylists; they cannot help but capture a moment in real time. Often revealing more than the photographer intended, Country House Camera presents an intriguing display of intimate and playful images of Lords, Ladies and Members of Parliament, seldom seen before.
As well as a cultural time capsule, Country House Camera is also an enduring document of some of England’s most valued historical buildings, many of which no longer exist. Christopher Simon Sykes takes the reader back 150 years to revisit the opulent interiors, majestic architecture and stunning grounds of 76 exquisite country houses across England, the prestigious families that inhabited them, and the fascinating histories which lie behind these spectacular heritage buildings.
Soon after the early photographic inventions of William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, which were conceived in his very own English Country House, the leisured and affluent upper-‐classes of the mid-19th century went on to make an art form of their new toy. Country House Camera, beautifully compiles fascinating photographic evidence of the lavish lifestyles our Victorian, Edwardian and Great War ancestors once led, poignantly invoking the people, places and nostalgia of a lost past.
Published by Stacey International on 29 October 2013 in hardback, £29.99. For more information please contact Hannah Young at Stacey Publishing on 07889 776 003 or email editorial@stacey-‐international.co.uk
UPDATE 28/10/2013: This event has been cancelled.
On 5 December 2013 the Getty Conservation Institute is holding a one-day symposium Turning Over An Old Leaf: Thomas Wedgwood, Humphry Davy, and Their Early Experiments in Photography.
The first published article on photography "An Account of a method of copying Paintings upon Glass, and of making Profiles, by the agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver. Invented by T. Wedgwood, ESQ. With Observations by H. Davy" was published in 1802 by Humphry Davy in the Journals of the Royal Institution.
In his article, Davy described his and Thomas Wedgwood's pioneering work experimenting with light-sensitive materials, creating photographic copies of plant leaves, and testing the feasibility of creating "views from nature" using a camera obscura. Generations of photography historians have searched for any material sample of Wedgwood and Davy's experiments, as these photographic images, if found and authenticated, would be nearly a quarter of a century older than Niepce's "First Photograph."
In April 2008, a photographic image known as The Leaf was placed for auction. The image attracted a great deal of interest from photography experts and enthusiasts when questions were raised about its origins. The Leaf was subsequently removed from auction for further research.
Turning Over An Old Leaf will present results of recently completed scientific analyses by GCI scientists of The Leaf and results from analyses of two botanical images from the Getty Museum's collection that once belonged to the same album as The Leaf, an album of photographic images assembled by British watercolorist Henry Bright.
Conservation scientists and conservators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art will present results from their analytical study of Shark Egg Case, an image from their collection that was also part of the album assembled by Bright.
These scientific results and findings will be discussed in light of current advances in historical research of the Henry Bright album and in light of a series of experimental scientific, photographic, and recreational studies of the photographic work of Thomas Wedgwood and Humphry Davy as described in their 1802 article. In addition, demonstrations will be held to provide symposium participants with a deeper insight into photographic experiments from this important era of the prehistory of photography.
List of Scheduled Presenters
Geoffrey Batchen, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Roy Flukinger, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Michael Gray, Image Research Associates, United Kingdom
Art Kaplan, Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles
Nora Kennedy, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Jill Quasha, Private Photography Dealer, New York
Grant Romer, Independent historian of photography, Rochester
Larry J. Schaaf, Independent historian of photogrpahy, Baltimore
Dusan Stulik, Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles
Frances Terpak, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
For more information, contact oldleaf@getty.edu or see: https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/public_programs/turning_over.html
